Inverse boundary spectral problem for Riemannian polyhedra (Q1938423)

The authors study the inverse spectral problem for the Laplace operator in a multi-component medium. The domain is assumed to consist of a finite number of sub-domains with piecewise smooth boundaries between them. The metric tensor on each subdomain is smooth but can have a jump discontinuity across the boundaries. Imposing the appropriate transmission boundary conditions across the interfaces permits the domain in question to be described as a Riemannian polyhedron. The Laplace operator with Neumann boundary conditions can then be defined. Let \(\{\lambda_k,\phi_k\}\) be the set of eigenvalues (where each eigenvalue is repeated according to multiplicity) and corresponding orthonormal eigenvalues. Let \(\Gamma\) be an open subset of \(\partial M\). The collection \((\Gamma,\{\lambda_k,\phi_k|_{\Gamma}\}_{k=1}^\infty)\) is called the \textit{local boundary spectral data of the Riemannian polyhedra}. The main result of the paper is the following: Theorem. Let \((M,g)\) and \((\tilde M,\tilde g)\) be two admissible Riemannian polyhedra where the metric tensors have jump discontinuities across all the \((n-1)\) dimensional interfaces. Assume they have isomorphic local boundary spectral data. Then \((M,g)\) is isometric to \((\tilde M,\tilde g)\).